The Dougloid Papers

devoted to the pursuit of all things of interest to former Douglas Aircraft workers and anything else that looks remotely interesting.
I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD-William Lloyd Garrison

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

A gentle reminder

Dear Reader, this is a gentle reminder to you that if you are a parking garage, your comments will be deleted without comment, as are the comments of all spam whores.

Monday, October 24, 2011

The 99 per centers and the Quislings

I guess I'm a ninety nine per center-I mean, who isn't, when their next paycheck or contract job contains a soupcon of doubt-and that's assuming that there's some sort of opportunity to get paid in the immediate future?

Not to mention a student loan overhang the size of Mount Rushmore, either. It's not just for twentysomethings any more. If it wasn't for President Bush and his pen back in 2007, I'd be in a lot worse shape than I am now. There's some comfort in knowing that the balance of my student loan debt will be forgiven when I'm 87.

Where was I? Oh, I remember. Too much parallel thinking this morning, which is how I tend to roll.

We've all seen the "I am not the 99 per cent" screed that was allegedly written by some college student somewhere, which has become a focus point for the credulous, kind of like a psychic bug zapper-it looks pretty, but get too close and Wall Street'll have your ass on a plate by lunch time.

There's no future in being a Quisling.

For those of you who've been out of the country, Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian Nazi (there he is in the photo on the left, schmoozing with Himmler) who, when the Nazis had no more use for him because they'd become extinct, became extinct himself at the hands of a firing squad in late 1945.

The moral of this part of the story is, as my old man used to say "It is never a good idea to rise too far above your station in life." To that, because I'm the family patriarch (and what a thought THAT is) I would add it is never a good idea to forget where you came from and who your people were. Being Wall Street's bitch will inevitably bite you in the ass, just as being Hitler's bitch settled old Vidkun's hash for good.

The following illustrates the principle.

Back in slavery days, ole Massuh told the house negroes that they were better than the field hands because they slept in a bed, dressed in real clothes, and worked in the house instead of out in the field or the stable with the heat and the sweat and the stink. And a lot of the house negroes believed this gross canard, to their discredit. But when ole Massuh had lost his roll at the faro tables, having been righteously skinned by riverboat card sharps, all the negroes without exception, field hands, house negroes, and even some of old Massuh's progeny from his late night drunken rambles in the slave quarters went on the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder without exception.

The Huckster, as they called him in Arkansas, is none of these things and never was.

Bryan was a deeply religious, principled midwesterner who attained high office but never became President in three tries, and he always fought for the oppressed and the victims of corporate greed. Huckabee, by contrast, is a bible thumping tea bagger who got a talk radio job and decided he'd rather boo from the sidelines than fight for principle in the blood and sweat of the arena.

Bryan never gave up.

Another president, Theodore Roosevelt, once mused on the difference between fighters and quitters:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

About Me

I'm a semi retired attorney and amp mechanic in central Iowa. I'm laying off the law and anything else I do not like due to my recent encounter with the Grim Reaper. Well. We passed by each other in the night and I got away clean. I moderate the posts here and I delete without comment those that attack me personally and are generally sophomoric, unlettered and play games with the truth.
This blog isn't a public toilet and you don't get to write on the walls here, people.
OUR CO-EDITOR: Darla Mondou comes to us through a fortuitous convergence of interest in ag law issues and technology-provided by those wonderful folks at Google and Blogger, who provide the forum. Darla is a graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Law and Graduate program in Agricultural Law, she hails from all over like me, and she is currently working on court appointed appeals in the federal system. It pays the bills.